Israel’s Wanton Murder of Palestinian civilians and its sanctification

Israel has a simple explanation for whenever it is caught out murdering another civilian(s).  ‘We are conducting an investigation.’  It is Mark Regev’s explanation when he has run out of any other excuse.  When, as with the case of the 4 boys who were mowed down by a fire from an Israeli airplane whilst running on a Gaza beach, the excuse was that it was 'a tragic accident'.

And when the Israeli military investigates itself it exonerates itself without exception.  That is why it is the ‘most moral army’ conducting the ‘most moral occupation’ in the history of the world.  Every act of murder is justified. 

The murder of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun was particularly horrific in Hebron last year.  An 18 year old student, Israeli army personnel barked orders at her in a language she didn’t understand.  She was clearly frightened and paralysed before she was gunned down.  No one has ever been charged, still less convicted of her murder.

The latest incident, involved a soldier Elor Azarya, whose name is subject to a gag order i.e. censorship, in Israel (despite it being the world's most democratic society, gag orders are frequent) deliberately aimed his rifle and shot a severely wounded Palestinian lying on the ground. The soldier it turns out from his FaceBook page was a supporter of the neo-Nazi Rabbi Meir Kahane (deceased) and a supporter of the racist Jerusalem Beitar football club.

It was only 2 days ago that I predicted that he would end up being released if not becoming a hero.  My prediction has come true even more quickly than I expected.

After having initially criticised him, Netanyahu has backed off as 57% of the Israeli public support him compared to half that condemning him.  The murder was particularly blatant yet a majority of Israelis support the murder of yet another Palestinian in Hebron, where 450 neo-Nazi Zionist settlers occupy the centre of the town.

Indeed a sickening 50,000 Israelis have signed a petition calling for this callous racist murderer to be given a medal.  It is the honour that used to attach to the SS.

This is the society which Western leaders call a 'democratic society'.  The Jewish democratic society is democratic for Jews (bar dissidents) and Jewish for its Arabs.

Tony Greenstein

See Israelis rally around soldier filmed executing injured Palestinian 

Elor Azarya, seen in an image posted on his Facebook page, has been named as the suspect in the apparent extrajudicial execution of Yusri al-Sharif in Hebron on 24 March.

Netanyahu and Sen. Leahy tangle over Israel’s killingof Hadeel Hashlamoun, 18

Killing of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, 18, in occupied territory goes unmentioned in J Street statement lamenting violence

 

The murder of Hadeel Hashlamoun

Update: The Benjamin Netanyahu government has responded angrily to the congressional letter, and Sen. Patrick Leahy has defended it. See below.

The horrifying killing of 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun at an Israeli checkpoint in occupied Hebron last September has at last become a public issue in the U.S. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has called on the State Department to determine whether the killing, and several other Israeli “extrajudicial killings,” violated the Leahy law against military assistance to gross human rights violators. The letter to John Kerry cites Egypt along with Israel, and is signed by ten members of Congress along with Leahy. They include Raul Grijalva, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chellie Pingree, Eddie Beatrice Johnson, Sam Farr, Jim McGovern, Jim McDermott, and Andre Carson.

Politico has published the letter. It includes these crucial passages:

There have been a disturbing number of reports of possible gross violations of human rights by security forces in Israel and Egypt — incidents that may have involved recipients, or potential recipients, of U.S. military assistance. We urge you to determine if these reports are credible and inform us of your findings:

Israel: Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have reported what may be extrajudicial killings by the Israeli military and police of Fadi Alloun, Saad Al-Atrash, Hadeel Hashlamoun, and Mutaz Ewisa. There are also reports of the use of torture in the cases of Wasim Marouf and Ahmed Manasra.

Hadeel Hashlamoun’s killing was of course the most dramatic and appalling Israeli killing last year because it was so amply documented and the pictures were so graphic, and it took place on September 22 before the so-called intifada of knives had begun in earnest.

Here is a report on the Fadi Alloun killing by police, near Damascus Gate last October, as Alloun was being chased by a mob, after allegedly stabbing a settler in East Jerusalem.

Here is a report from EI on the killing of Saad Atrash, 19, in Hebron last October.

I would note that many of the signatories, including Hank Johnson, Andre Carson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Raul Grijalva, are people of color; this is relevant because as Tamara Cofman Wittes said at Columbia Monday night, Israel support is slowly becoming politicized in the U.S. as the Democratic base becomes more heavily black and Latino, groups that have sympathy for the Palestinian cause. And all the signatories to this letter are Democrats.

Politico states that Jewish Voice for Peace advised Leahy on the letter. Nahal Toosi writes:

The letter’s real impact may be political: Israel’s unusual, if not unprecedented inclusion with Egypt on such an inquiry is likely to rile Israel’s allies in Washington, who bristle at the notion that the Middle East’s only established democracy could be lumped in with a notorious human rights abuser like Egypt.

Though it was sent to Kerry well beforehand, the timing of the letter’s release comes just days after an Israeli soldier was filmed executing a Palestinian prisoner at close range – setting off fury in the Arab world and launching a military disciplinary process that has many on the Israeli right fuming.

Update. The Netanyahu government is enraged by the letter.

PM Netanyahu's response to US @SenatorLeahy: IDF & police defend innocent civilians against bloodthirsty terrorists. pic.twitter.com/5QYblbGHE4

— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) March 30, 2016

And Leahy has responded strongly:

“The Prime Minister of Israel knows – and it should go without saying – that the United States does not provide weapons or other aid to Hamas or any other terrorist group, and that no nation more strongly condemns and works to eradicate terrorism worldwide than does the United States.  There are multiple laws prohibiting such aid to Hamas and other such groups, and one reason Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid is to help defend against terrorist attacks.

“The congressional letter cites allegations of possible serious abuses, identified by respected international human rights organizations, by the military and police forces of Egypt and Israel.  Under the Leahy Law it is the responsibility of the State Department to evaluate the credibility of such allegations.  The Leahy Law, which has existed for nearly 20 years, applies uniformly, worldwide – no country is exempt – and it applies to specific military personnel and units, not to general security forces, when U.S. aid is involved.  It has led to the suspension of U.S. aid to military personnel and units found to have committed abuses in many countries when governments fail to punish those responsible, and only when those governments themselves have failed to act.  This is only fair to U.S. taxpayers, and it is necessary in upholding the rule of law that our country stands for.”

Israelis rally around soldier filmed executing injured Palestinian

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 28 March 2016

 A new video shows an Israeli soldier shaking hands with a settler leader just after the soldier was filmed apparently executing an injured Palestinian in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
The video has emerged as Israelis, including top leaders, are rallying around the accused killer.

Abd al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was shot dead along with Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both of them 21 years old, after allegedly stabbing and moderately wounding a soldier in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron’s Old City on Thursday.

The slaying of al-Sharif, who was lying on the ground incapacitated but moving his head before he was shot, was caught on video.

The new video shows the shooter “shaking hands with far-right activist Baruch Marzel” while al-Sharif’s body is removed from the scene, according to Haaretz.

The US-born Marzel, a former leader of the violent group Kach, is notorious for fomenting attacks on Palestinians.

Kach was outlawed by Israel after one of its members, the US-born medical doctor Baruch Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians at Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque in 1994.

The video provides visible evidence of the close relationship between the Israeli army and the violent settlers it supports and protects.

Shooter named

Haaretz says the new video, published on its YouTube account with the face of the gunman blurred, was filmed by a Palestinian fieldworker with B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group which released the video showing the execution on Thursday.


The blurring of the faces in the new video is in apparent deference to a gag order that prevents Israeli media from revealing the suspect’s identity.

However, blogger Richard Silverstein, who has frequently published information censored by Israeli authorities, has named the suspect as Elor Azarya, citing independent Israeli websites.

Israel’s Ynet news website effectively confirmed the identification by publishing an image of the suspect with his face blurred.

The same image, without the blurring, appears on Azarya’s Facebook page.

“He is a devoted follower of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club,” noted Silverstein, based on analysis of Azarya’s social media accounts. Azarya has also written “Kahane was right” on his Facebook page – a slogan used by supporters of late Kach founder Meir Kahane, who called for the total expulsion of Palestinians.

Beitar Jerusalem fans are notorious for taking part in mobs and rallies calling for “death to the Arabs.”

“Confirming the kill”

According to Silverstein’s analysis, Azarya, a medic, “asked permission from his commanding officer to ‘finish off’ the wounded Palestinian.”

“Apparently the commander approved,” Silverstein added. “The soldier walked to within six feet of the wounded Palestinian, cocked his rifle and shot him.”

This practice is known in the Israeli army as “confirming the kill,” and has been used and subsequently approved even in the slaying of Palestinian children such as 13-year-old Iman al-Hams in Gaza in 2004.

Azarya also “liked” the Facebook pages of Israeli leaders who have incited violence or genocide against Palestinians – justice minister Ayelet Shaked and former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman – as well as the Facebook page of Marzel.

Public support

Israel’s political and military establishment broke out into a chorus of condemnation immediately after the release of the video on Thursday.

The army also announced the detention of the soldier and an investigation into the killing.
Yet the condemnations were baldly hypocritical given the long record of Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of inciting and approving extrajudicial executions of Palestinians.

Numerous videos have shown such killings of Palestinians who were injured, incapacitated or otherwise posed no plausible threat.

Now Netanyahu appears to backing away from his criticism, in light of a swell of public support for the Hebron gunman.

The prime minister told cabinet colleagues on Sunday that “questioning the IDF’s [Israeli army’s] morality is outrageous and unacceptable … IDF soldiers, our children, maintain a high moral standard when they deal with bloodthirsty murderers.”

Netanyahu added that he was “certain that in this case, like in every other case, all of the circumstances are taken into account. Thus we must all support the IDF chief of staff, the IDF and the soldiers that protect us.”

Haaretz called Netanyahu’s comments a “backtrack” from his initial condemnation of the shooting.
Netanyahu’s change of tune appears to be in harmony with public opinion as well as with other politicians who are striking tougher poses
.
Naftali Bennett, the Israeli education minister who has boasted about his own record of killing Arabs, also offered his support to the gunman.

“The soldier is not a murderer. Have we lost our minds?” Bennett wrote in a Facebook post that calls Israel’s military “the most moral army in the world.”

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, several ministers, including Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, voiced support for the soldier.

Meanwhile, Avigdor Lieberman demanded the impeachment of the defense minister for failing to back the soldier, and called Netanyahu “spineless.”

Israel’s Channel 2 published an opinion poll on Saturday showing that 57 percent of Israelis believe
there is no need to investigate or detain the soldier, as reported by Haaretz.

Two in five respondents called the soldier’s behavior “responsible” and just five percent described it as murder.

A petition asking Bibi to give a medal to the soldier who executed a Palestinian in Hebron has ~42,000 signatures. 

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) March 27, 2016

An online petition calling on Israel to give the soldier a medal has received almost 50,000 signatures.
The municipality of Beit Shemesh, a town in present-day Israel, even published an ad on its official website urging citizens to attend a rally on Monday to demand the release of Azarya, whom it called a “national hero.”

Official website of the Beit Shemesh municipality advertises rally in support of Elor Azarya, who was filmed executing an injured Palestinian at close range.

The soldier’s family has also mounted a high-profile campaign in defense of Azarya.


The gunman’s mother wrote an open letter to Moshe Yaalon, the defense minister, telling him that

“you stood in my son’s place, only in the room of Abu Jihad, and confirmed the kill of a despicable terrorist and murderer.”

She was referring to Yaalon’s role in the 1988 slaying of Khalil al-Wazir, a senior PLO leader who was executed in his Tunis home by Israeli assasins, in front of his wife and son.

Mother of solider who executed Palestinian to @bogie_yaalon: You also shot to confirm death. 

— Jamil Dakwar (@jdakwar) March 27, 2016

Meanwhile, the Israeli army investigation into Thursday’s killing has reportedly revealed that the shooter had told a comrade that Abd al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif “needs to die” shortly before he shot him.

According to Haaretz, the “investigation also found that in contradiction to claims of self-defense voiced by the soldier’s lawyer, there was no evidence supporting the claim there were fears the prone Palestinian was carrying a suicide belt.”

Palestinians targeted

While Israeli leaders line up to support al-Sharif’s killer, Israeli forces on the ground are targeting the youth’s family.

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers raided the home of Abd al-Fattah’s brother, Khalid Yusri al-Sharif, in the village of Jabal Abu Rumman, near Hebron, the Ma’an News Agency reported.

Imad Abu Shamsiyyeh, the B’Tselem volunteer who filmed the execution video, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces threatened him both at the scene of the shooting and later on.

Abu Shamsiyyeh was called in by the army to give a witness statement.

He says the army interrogator told him: “How will you benefit from this video? It got a lot of publicity. Your name is known to everyone. Who is going to protect you and your family from right-wing Israelis? Remember you live in [Tel Rumeida], surrounded by Israeli settlers, who will be able to protect you there?”

“I felt that I was being threatened,” Abu Shamsiyyeh said.

Impunity for war crimes

Human Rights Watch said that “the open and casual way that a soldier appears to execute a wounded, prone Palestinian, which was captured on video, suggests a dangerous climate of impunity for war crimes.”

“The video of al-Sharif’s killing by an Israeli soldier shows both an apparent cold-blooded murder and numerous witnesses, which should make for a strong legal case,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director.

“The question is whether Israeli authorities will do what they haven’t done in countless other cases and bring the alleged killer to justice,” Whitson added.

Given the way Israeli leaders are rallying around the gunman, there’s little reason to expect anything different this time.

Israel's Shoot to Kill Policy Takes a Terrible Toll

Knives are not the way

An excellent summary of the shoot to kill policy of Israeli soldiers and police by Jonathan Cook.  The hunting down of Palestinians, the throwing down of knives in front of Palestinians who a mob then invites Police to execute or, in the case of Fadi Alloun, the shooting by police of a Palestinian fleeing a Jewish lynch mob.

Settlers try to storm Damascus Gate

Of course in this situation the Labour ‘opposition’ calls for even more stringent security measures to 

preserve the security of the Jewish population. 

The resort to stabbing by young Palestinians is an indication of their desperation.  I hope that Palestinian society as a whole will bring an end to this tactic.  It can only legitimise the lynch mobs and the increasing use of shoot to kill.  Nothing is more moving than seeing the bleeding body of 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra, who I wrongly reported as having been killed, being abused by settlers and Police who prevented emergency medical help getting to him.  

13 year old Ahmed Manasra lies on pavement bleeding as a racist mob gathers round telling him to die - medical help was obstructed by Police

The tactic is wrong and can only rebound on Palestinians.  It will only intensify and magnify the genocidal element of Israel’s Jewish population and prevent joint work between Israeli Jews and Palestinians.  It will not and cannot have any positive effects and as has already been seen is resulting in massive Palestinian casualties.  It is the duty of those who engage in solidarity not to act as cheerleaders.  We are seeing a daily crop of young Palestinians being killed by the Israeli military/police forces.  The motives for going out and stabbing at random are understandable, born as they are of frustration, anger and hopelessness.  But we should not encourage the Palestinian youth to lay down their lives like this.

Nonetheless we have to pay tribute to the courage of those young people who know that they will not survive an attack but who nonetheless feel so desperate that they feel they have no alternative.  It is a suicide mission by those with nothing to lose and that is in itself an indictment of us all.  But it is heartbreaking to see young Palestinian bodies lying bleeding on the boardwalk, harangued by racist and murderous settlers.  The motives of these young Palestinians is entirely understandable but it is a product of a lack of Palestinian leadership and a symptom of despair.

A third intifada will not be built with knives but with mass concerted actions of resistance and protest.  Its first target will be the quisling PA regime in Ramallah, Israel’s eyes and ears within the Palestinian community. 

Tony Greenstein

Israeli Police violently enter Al Aqsa Mosque causing damage and firing stun guns

Videos challenge Israeli police account of shootings

Jonathan Cook

16 October 2015

Israel accused of blocking investigations as films suggest security forces quick on trigger with Palestinian suspects

Middle East Eye – 16 October 2015

It has been called the “smartphone intifada”. After a sharp escalation in violence between Palestinians and Israelis in recent weeks, shocking scenes captured on video have spread across social media.

According to Israeli human rights organisations, several such videos challenge the accuracy of official Israeli accounts of the circumstances in which police have killed or injured Palestinians.

The footage, the nine groups said in a statement this week, provided concrete evidence that police were “quick to shoot to kill” rather than arrest Palestinians in Jerusalem and Israel who were suspected of involvement in attacks on Israeli Jews.

The shootings, they added, had occurred when the Palestinians posed no physical threat to security forces.

Lawyers have also accused the justice ministry of thwarting investigations, especially into the police killing of Fadi Alloun, a Palestinian from Jerusalem. Security camera footage of his shooting has been withheld and his family have been denied access to his body for an autopsy.

Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel has illegally annexed, are subject to Israeli civil law – unlike the West Bank, where Palestinians live under Israeli military rule.

Human rights groups have long complained that Israeli soldiers in the West Bank carry out “extra-judicial executions”.

The Israeli government recently announced it was authorising for the first time the use of live-fire against Palestinians, including children, who throw stones in Israel and Jerusalem.

Israel includes a population of 1.6 million Palestinians who have citizenship, while most of East Jerusalem’s 370,000 Palestinians have Israeli residency permits.

Adalah, a legal centre for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, said details of the government’s new live-fire regulations had yet to be divulged to them.

But it cited Israeli politicians and police commanders as openly calling for extra-judicial killings since the upswing in tensions.

‘Terrorists will not survive’

Jerusalem’s police chief, Moshe Edri, is reported to have said: “Anyone who stabs Jews or hurts innocent people is due to be killed.” Police minister Gilad Erdan similarly declared: “Every terrorist should know that he will not survive the attack he is about to commit.”

Adalah and Addameer, a Palestinian group defending prisoners’ rights, sent a letter to Israel’s attorney general this week highlighting three cases where video footage documented the unjustified shooting or abuse of Palestinian suspects.

Suhad Bishara, an Adalah lawyer, said the Israeli justice ministry had given no indication that its police investigations unit, Mahash, would investigate any of the incidents.

“What they are saying is the precise opposite: that these officers are heroes, that they behaved according to the law,” she said.

Mahash is already deeply mistrusted by Israel’s Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population, after it failed to identify any of the police officers responsible for killing 13 unarmed demonstrators inside Israel at the start of the second intifada in October 2000.

There have been 51 deaths of Palestinian citizens at the hands of the security forces since the October 2000 events, most in unexplained circumstances, compared to two Israeli Jews.

Bishara said: “We seem to have reached an even worse point than after the October 2000 events. Then Mahash conducted some investigations, even if they were deeply flawed. Now the need for investigations is simply being ignored.”

A spokeswoman for Mahash confirmed that a complaint from Adalah had been received but would make no further comment.

The urgent need for investigations was underscored late Thursday when the interior minister, Silvan Shalom, said he intended to strip Palestinian-Israeli “terror suspects” of their citizenship and those in Jerusalem of their residency permits.

According to international law, countries should not leave their citizens stateless.

Body kept from family

Adalah and Addameer are concerned that in the most prominent of the filmed shootings – of Alloun on 4 October – Israeli officials are putting up obstacles to block any investigation.

Videos on social media show a policeman shooting dead 19-year-old Alloun as he seeks protection from a mob of Israeli Jews chasing him and demanding that he be executed.

The crowd accuses him of a stabbing that occurred moments earlier close to the Old City. Even though the film suggests he posed no physical threat at the time, a police officer fired at him seven times. Alloun fell to the ground after the first shot.

Morad Jadalah, a lawyer with Addameer, said the authorities had refused to make available footage from security cameras in the area that might provide a clearer view of what happened.

They had also denied Alloun’s family access to his body, and the police had buried him without an autopsy being carried out.

Adalah and Addameer accused the police of seeking to “disrupt the investigation in advance” and “damage essential factual findings”.

Jadalah said: “If we can’t examine Alloun’s body to see how he was killed, we have no case against the police in court, whatever the videos reveal. The authorities are engaged in attempts to prevent justice from being done.”

In another case taken up by Adalah, from 9 October, Israa Abed, a 30-year-old mother of three from Nazareth, is filmed surrounded by soldiers and police at a bus station in northern Israel. As she stands almost immobile before them, several shots are fired, wounding her.

Although the security services have claimed there was a knife in her hand, she can be seen making no effort to attack them. Another video, taken shortly after she was shot, appears to show a pair of sunglasses, not a knife, next to her.

Doctors have said she was shot six times from the same gun.

Shalom named Abed, who survived the shooting, as one of two Palestinian citizens he wanted to strip of their citizenship.

Boy left to bleed

In the third case, 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra is filmed being kicked by police and denied medical treatment as he lies bleeding and severely injured on a road in a settlement in East Jerusalem on 12 October. Crowds of settlers curse him and shout “Die! Son of a bitch.”

He was rammed by a vehicle after he and an older cousin were suspected of stabbing two Israeli Jews, one a child his own age.

Physicians for Human Rights in Israel decried a video and photos released by the government on Thursday of Manasra recovering in an Israeli hospital. They said the images violated Israel’s juvenile and privacy laws, and the hospital’s involvement was a severe breach of medical ethics.

Suspicions have been raised too about the fatal shooting of Basel Sidr on 14 October. Footage shows police shooting the 20-year-old as he tried to attack them with a knife at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City.

However, B’Tselem, an Israeli organisation monitoring Israeli violations in the occupied territories, expressed “grave concern” that the officers continued to shoot at Sidr after he was wounded on the ground with no one near him.

Jadalah, of Addameer, said: “These videos are helping to fuel Palestinian rage. They reinforce the sense in Jerusalem that we are fighting for our lives and the city.”

Since the start of the month, 32 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded. Attacks have left seven Israeli Jews dead.

On Wednesday thousands of soldiers and paramilitary Border Police were deployed in Jerusalem and major cities in Israel where Palestinians live. It is the first time in more than a decade soldiers have been used inside Israel.

8,000 gun permit requests

Meanwhile, Israeli media reports indicate that, since the unrest erupted, Israeli soldiers and police have had a light finger on the trigger and have rushed to conclusions about the threat posed by Palestinians unsupported by evidence.

On Thursday a soldier opened fire in a train near Haifa, causing minor injuries, after other soldiers wrongly shouted out a warning that someone was holding a knife.

Later the same day, police admitted that two Palestinians from East Jerusalem arrested on suspicion of planning an attack after a major manhunt in Tel Aviv were simply visiting the city.

Israeli politicians such as Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat have called on Israeli civilians who own a firearm to carry it at all times. On Friday some 8,000 Jews were reported to have applied for a gun permit in the first 24 hours after the easing of licensing rules by the government.

“In the current atmosphere, the call by politicians for Israeli civilians to arm themselves constitutes incitement to kill Palestinians for no reason,” said Bishara, of Adalah. “It sends a message to the security forces and to Israeli civilians that Arab life is of no value.”

There has also been a spate of reports in the past week of Palestinian citizens being beaten or stabbed by Israeli Jews after they were identified as Arab. Mobs of Jews chanting “Death to Arabs” are now a familiar sight in Jerusalem.

In the southern town of Dimona last week, an Israeli Jew stabbed four Palestinians over the course of an hour.

Jadalah said: “When Israeli Jews carry out knife attacks, they are arrested, not killed. It seems the police can follow proper procedures when Jews are involved.”

Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, echoed Jadalah on Twitter: “Of course the Jewish stabber ended the spree [of stabbings] without a bullet or scratch.”

Rami Nasreddin, the director of Palvision, a youth empowerment programme in Jerusalem, said videos of violence by the security forces and of Jewish mobs had left many Palestinians in Jerusalem frightened to go out.

“Most of the schools are closed because parents are afraid to let their children on to the streets,” he said.

“I have to admit I am scared myself. I know that if a settler shouts out that I have a knife or that I am a terrorist, the police are likely to shoot me without a second thought.”